Frozen Toilet!

[wlmartin]

I have a bit of a story to tell.... if anyone can offer some advise I would greatly appreciate all input!



I flushed my toilet this afternoon before soon realizing that it was blocked.

Anytime a toilet usually gets blocked in our house, as we have no kids it is down to excess toilet paper which a quick fiddle with a toiletbrush usually recovers the problem.

This didnt work this time. I reached in with my hand and could tell there was no immediate blockage and even got a wire coat hanger into the cuff pipe area and it didnt seem to be blocked either.

After "much" plunging and making a mess, I soon found nothing was working. Add to that now the excess plunging has caused a secondary problem in that the pipe/cuff is now leaking when there is water inside it.

From a lot of the local plumbers I have called it seems there are a great number of people reporting frozen soil pipes, apparentely for the first time in a long time. One such plumber reported dealing with 3 on his own today, 1 guy actually made the same mistake I did and "over-plunged" (glad to hear my over-active DIYness is not just me).

He said (and it makes sense when I hear it back) that he believes my Soil Pipe contains frozen water and since my plunging was creating a deal of pressure in the pipe and hitting a solid block of ice, it had to escape at the weakest point which in this case of my pipes woudl be the plastic cuff area.

The cuff thing I can deal with, either a quick repair or plumber visit once this situation is dealt with.

The Plumber mentioned his only option at present, rather than let nature takes its course and thaw us out is to pull out the blocked ice by breaking the pipe and then repairing it with a new pipe, which would cost £300-£400. This may be quite reasonable, however the cost is far too much to even consider.

So this means that both me and the wife are reduced to playing a waiting game for the frozen ice to thaw.

There is an outside chance that it is just "blocked" and a visit from a Jet/Rod drainage guy could be worthwhile. After all some of them give a "no block - no charge" quote, so for £50 if they visited and couldnt get rid of the blockage because it was ice ---- there you go 100% confirmed and no charge, however if it was something solid they could remove then it is £50 well spent i'd say... so I am very tempted!

At present since money is tight, I am loathed to spend £60 from Argos on a Chemical Toilet, so both me and the wife are reduced to

a) Saving our toilet visits for work where we are free to do as we do
b) Using a bucket (one for no1 and one for no2) should the need arise

I am the typical guy, I will no1 in the sink or against the wall outside .... and we have lots of wooded areas so a quick no2 in the woods with a doggy poop bag to collect it up with seems the best option for me but I detest having to ask my wife to "Poo in a bucket" and rather than shell out many monies on a Chemical Toilet I would be keen on other suggestions.



All in all it is a crap situation, especialy since we had to dismantle our bathroom sink due to no draining before realizing the outlet pipe was frozen, and had to send off for a replacement outlet motor for our Dishwasher because that had packed in.... roll on 2011!!

 

[dennyboy]

few kettles of boiling water down the pan? - never heard of a full soil stack freezing before though

 

[xr4x4]

where does the soil pipe go?

cant you defrost it with hot/warm water?

i guess its out side?

 

[wlmartin]

Q : few kettles of boiling water down the pan?
A : The missus suggested that and since I am out of other sane options that seems an idea to try, my concern is that if I have a 50 litre pipe (just for arguments sake) with say a 10 litre of pure ice, above that is 30 litres of cold water and above that is 10 litre of empty space, if I fill that empty space with boiling water, whilst I can see it creating some kind of change to the 30 litres of cold water... i cant see it making a dent on the ice blockage

Q : where does the soil pipe go?
A : Our soil pipe leaves out 2nd floor toilet, goes out of the house on a decline where it meets the gutter pipe and go straight into the sewer. The outside soil pipe is cast iron as far as I can tell, i tried spending 30 minutes heating many parts of the soil pipe to no avail, it seemed a bit pointless honestly since in all that time I barely shifted some of the icicles sitting on the pipe itself!

Add to that, our Toilet has had repeated problems with the cistern where the cistern fills slowly with water and when it reaches the top, overfills into the overflow pipe - going straight down the toilet and results in a further build up - I had to mop up some water spillage this morning due to it overflowing!

I may try the hot water down the pan idea, you never know it may work if I do it repeatedly enough!

 

[HERTS P&D]

1. Bring in your garden hose and let it thaw out.
2. Go to B & Q and buy an adaptor to fit your garden hose to your kitchen sink.
3. Go outside, turn HOT water on your kitchen sink and de-ice your soil pipe with the hose.


Cost......about a tenner.

Andy

 

[wlmartin]

Ah this sounds like a good idea... and something I was thinking of myself.

So just soak the outside of the pipe with the hose.

It sounds like you might have done this before... any idea how long it takes?

 

[Adrian80]

get a kg bag of salt from tesco, go to the top of the soil stack, tip it in and wash down with a a couple of litres of hot water.

Might even be better to pre mix the salt and hot water.

I bet you probably had a blockage somewhere as you would need the pipe to backup before you had any water for it to freeze...

A

 

[Burnerman]

Is the soil pipe connected to a downcomer? A trickle of slow thaw could easily freeze on the way down - concentrate on the bend
John

 

[wlmartin]

The pipe looks like

Untitled

• wlmartin
• 22 Dec 2010
• 1

My plan is to hot-water-hose the outside of the pipe and if that fails stick it straight down the stack.

This seems like it should work well enough...


This leads me onto the other problem - the leaking joint

Untitled

• wlmartin
• 22 Dec 2010
• 1

I am unsure of a few things

1 : Is this pipe cast iron?
(if feels cold, it doesnt feel like plastic but some people have told me cast iron and plastic can seem very similar)
2 : What is the name of the join that links the external pipe going into the wall with the cuff connected to the toilet?

It is my guess that either the toilet cuff or this joining part are damaged and leaking as it is less likely that the external pipe is leaking.

My goal is to pull the toilet off, remove the possibly damaged parts and replace them with better working parts but am a bit lost as to the best way to go about it and what parts I may need.


Can anyone offer some advice please?

 

[Adrian80]

I would un-block the drain, dry the cuff out with a hair dryer, and keep my fingers crossed that you havent wrecked the seal.

Hopefully it will just re-seal itself.

A

 

[wlmartin]

Adrian80,

Thanks for the advice... call me a complete n00b but how can a pipe like this re-seal itself?

 

[xr4x4]

Add to that, our Toilet has had repeated problems with the cistern where the cistern fills slowly with water and when it reaches the top, overfills into the overflow pipe - going straight down the toilet and results in a further build up

thats the cause of your problem.

 

[wlmartin]

Add to that, our Toilet has had repeated problems with the cistern where the cistern fills slowly with water and when it reaches the top, overfills into the overflow pipe - going straight down the toilet and results in a further build up

thats the cause of your problem.

You think that the toilet could be draining into the pan when overflowing and since it is a trickle, slowly building up an icy blockage in the pipe?

I hadnt thought of it being that, just shows that leaving a problem to go on longer than needed can only come back to bite you in the bum later!

 

[xr4x4]

Add to that, our Toilet has had repeated problems with the cistern where the cistern fills slowly with water and when it reaches the top, overfills into the overflow pipe - going straight down the toilet and results in a further build up

thats the cause of your problem.

You think that the toilet could be draining into the pan when overflowing and since it is a trickle, slowly building up an icy blockage in the pipe?

I hadnt thought of it being that, just shows that leaving a problem to go on longer than needed can only come back to bite you in the bum later!

yup...id put money on it.

 

[Adrian80]

The Collar is just a bit of rubber. When you plunged it all you did was find the weakest joint and pushed the water out.

Without the pressure from plunging it shouldnt be leaking.

try toolstation.com for lists of parts.